


I Wanna Be The Very Best

by Haicrescendo



Series: Carry On For You [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Oops, The pokemon au nobody asked for, badge challenger sokka, casually beautiful zuko, gym leader zuko, hand waving canon because fuck it, i don’t play by the rules of pokémon don’t @ me, idc and I do what I want, local gym leader moonlights as rumored cryptid, meanwhile sokka suffers, sokka is so tired, subsequently so does zuko, the first in a series of one shots, uncle as himself, zuko still has the scar and it might actually have a more horrifying backstory than canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22203142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo
Summary: [“Gym Leader Zuko?” He asks hopefully, and the grin the man sends him dashes his hopes into smoke.“Afraid not,” the man says, “Zuko is my nephew and unfortunately, he’s not here right now.”“Shit.” Sokka squirms a little. “Any idea when he may be back? I need his badge so I can—“ Go beat up Aang for being annoying and perfect at everything and making champion at thirteen goddamn years old while Sokka’s doing this whole thing late— “Better myself and reach true enlightenment. Uh. Sir.”The man says nothing about Sokka’s age, just hmmms in consideration and rustles his bag.“Call me Iroh,” the man says. “My nephew is like a spring wind, vivacious and—“Flighty.]Or,The Pokémon AU that nobody asked for.
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Carry On For You [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599013
Comments: 153
Kudos: 2909
Collections: Good_or_Decent_Zuko_With_a_dash_of_Iroh_Azula_Gaang, The Last Rec List





	I Wanna Be The Very Best

**Author's Note:**

> So this started as a crack idea on tumblr and now it’s spiraled into a real idea, and I’d say that I was sorry but I am 100% not. If you enjoyed this, please comment and tell me! Putting things out into the void is hard. If you want to ramble at me or send me headcanons or whatever, I’m on tumblr @sword-and-stars.

* * *

The gym in Vulca is  _ way _ less ostentatious than Sokka had been expecting.

The city’s beautiful in an old sort of way and it makes Sokka feel like he’s stepped off the boat and into another region entirely. It’s not that there aren’t modern shops or restaurants, but the architecture is sloping and old fashioned, and everyone’s favorite colors seem to be red and gold.

Sokka expects a massive, sloping castle or something comparable to the sleek stadium in Gaoling, but when he asks for directions he’s pointed to an easy-to-miss, machiya-style building towards the center of town that has a only a small sign that declares it Vulca’s gym.

The guy who gave him directions also laughed and wished him luck.

Somehow, and he’s not sure how, but somehow Sokka  _ knows _ that he’s not wishing him luck in battle.

It’s nondescript but it’s  _ big _ , and Sokka pulls in a big breath to steady himself before sliding open the door.

And stops.

The inside is light and airy and looks absolutely nothing like a gym, and is in fact completely empty except for a large Ninetales, so old that it’s completely grey around the muzzle, sleeping in the center of the room.

“Uh...excuse me? Anyone home?”

The Ninetales lifts its head and yawns.

“Sorry,” Sokka lowers his voice to a whisper, “Anyone home?”

“Goodness gracious, aren’t you polite?”

Sokka nearly jumps out of his skin and whips around to come face to face with a short man with grey hair and a kind, pleasant face. He’s carrying a bag of snacks.

“Gym Leader Zuko?” He asks hopefully, and the grin the man sends him dashes his hopes into smoke.

“Afraid not,” the man says, “Zuko is my nephew and unfortunately, he’s not here right now.”

“Shit.” Sokka squirms a little. “Any idea when he may be back? I need his badge so I can—“ Go beat up Aang for being annoying and perfect at everything and making champion at  _ thirteen goddamn years old _ while Sokka’s doing this whole thing late— “Better myself and reach true enlightenment. Uh. Sir.”

The man says nothing about Sokka’s age, just hmmms in consideration and rustles his bag.

“Call me Iroh,” the man says. “My nephew is like a spring wind, vivacious and—“

Flighty.

That is what literally everyone Sokka has talked to has said about Vulca’s gym leader and he’d really been hoping it wasn’t true. How’s Sokka supposed to get his last badge if he can’t even find the guy? From what he’s heard and read, Vulca’s gym history is turbulent and honestly pretty horrifying, and Zuko hasn’t held the position for long.

Normally, that would translate to an easy win. 

An easy win is  _ not _ what Sokka has heard.

His frustration must show on his face because Iroh’s smile widens and he claps him on the shoulder.

“Here, let’s not make your trip for nothing. Please, join me for tea.”

* * *

In theory, Gym Leader Zuko went to get milk.

That’s what Iroh says.

Gym Leader Zuko did not, in fact, get milk, because when Sokka goes to see if the closest grocer had seen him, she tells him that he’d had a jug in his hands, seen something across the street, and bolted for the door. Apparently, he hadn’t even put it back in the fridge.

Rude.

The story, while accompanied by fun hand gestures and inevitably wild exaggerations, doesn’t exactly help Sokka figure out where the hell the dude has gone. Everyone he asks gets the same look— a funny, exasperated-but-unsurprised, kinda constipated look, and gives the exact same kind of sigh too. They all apologize and it’s not like Sokka’s ungrateful, but  _ wow _ .

Nobody has seen the guy?

Like at all?

Maybe somebody made him up and the actual gym leader  _ was _ the old guy, and his gym challenge is figuring out that a story about a wandering nephew is actually a crock of shit. Sokka sighs a little to himself and realizes with a vague sort of horror that he sounds almost exactly like the last few locals he spoke to. Crap. 

Sokka distracts himself from his own conspiracy theories by releasing Vaporeon from its pokeball and letting it trot beside him down the streets. He buys a stick of yakitori and gives Vaporeon half to avoid more ice water down his boots.

“I don’t suppose  _ you’ve  _ seen Mr. Mysterious Gym Leader, have you?” Sokka asks as he pays, and for the first time, The Sigh...doesn’t happen.

“Oh, yeah!” The man says brightly, as if Sokka hasn’t been scouring the city like some weirdo stalker for the last two hours, “He bought a few sticks from me and looked like he was heading down to the docks.”

...that doesn’t sound at all like  _ getting goddamned milk _ .

The docks are nowhere near as sketchy as Sokka thought they’d be, but he still hears the thud of a fist hitting flesh as he passes a metal storage container. He darts around to take a peek and stops, dead still in his tracks.

A tall guy in red and his dark hair tied up in a ponytail has a man about twice his size pushed up against the container. Emphasis on  _ up,  _ because the guy’s feet dangle about a foot off the ground, held up only by Tall-and-Dark’s clenched hands in his shirt.

He’s also wearing cutoff jorts.

It’s pretty unfortunate.

Sokka really hopes that Mr. Jorts isn’t actually Gym Leader Zuko, because Tall-and-Dark looks pissed and dangerous and on the verge of committing murder, and Sokka’s just not sure he’s ready to deal with being a witness to this shit.

So honestly, Sokka can’t be blamed for being a little relieved to hear Tall-and-Dark speak.

“And don’t you dare even  _ think _ of bringing that shit back into my city,” he snarls. “There was enough of that garbage going around when Ozai was in charge and  _ I won’t have it here _ , do you understand me? You live here and be decent or you get the hell out and don’t ever come back.” Tall-and-Dark emphasizes every word with a little extra slam of Mr. Jorts’ back against metal. It’s really convincing. Sokka is extremely convinced.

At least this means that the man under duress isn’t actually Gym Leader Zuko and it seems like he’s shady enough that Sokka doesn’t have to worry about trying to save him.

He shifts to move away and his boot scuffs metal. It makes a scraping sound, catching Tall-and Dark’s attention and distracting him enough that he catches a swing of a fist with his nose. Immediately blood begins to drip down his face.

“Oh,  _ shit _ ,” Sokka whispers under his breath. Tall-and-Dark’s eyes are very, very gold, even more so than Iroh’s. Iroh who is almost definitely this guy’s uncle. “Shit.” The guy’s eyes are so gold that Sokka is almost ( _ almost _ ) distracted by the livid scar pressed into the left side of his face, right over his eye.

Mr. Jorts takes another try for Zuko’s face.

“Oh, that  _ does it, _ ” he growls and hits him right there, lets him drop to the ground where he proceeds to groan a little but otherwise not move.

At least this means that Sokka hasn’t just made himself a witness to murder. At least, not the murder of anything but somebody’s dignity.

Zuko scrubs a hand across his face and manages to smear blood all over himself.

“Can I help you?”

He stares at Sokka and Sokka stares back, quiet.

He’s  _ awfully _ judgemental for somebody who just got punched in the nose.

Sokka, because he has a sense of self preservation, does not say this. Instead, he takes a step forward and fishes a water bottle out of his bag and his clean, albeit slightly ratty hair towel.

“Can I help  _ you? _ ”

Zuko, eventually, lets Sokka give him a hand. He gives Mr. Jorts a firm, resentful kick in the ribs beforehand, and it still takes a decent amount of shaming on behalf of his uncle (which 100% does not stick, even a little) and on behalf of the grocer who had to put back his abandoned milk (which sticks a little more).

“I’m Zuko,” he says when his face is somewhat clean and his nose has stopped bleeding and Sokka has managed to get both of them out of the harbor without any more damage. “You were looking for me?” He acts like he’s got no idea why somebody he doesn’t know might be looking for him.

Sokka breathes deeply and massages his temples. He squeezes the bridge of his nose really hard until he sees sparkles.

He sighs.

“Yeah,” he says, finally. “Yeah.” 

Blue eyes lock with gold.

“I challenge you for the badge of the Vulca Islands.”

Very, very slowly, Zuko’s lips tilt up in a sharp, dangerous grin.

“On behalf of Vulca’s gym, I accept your challenge.”

  
  


* * *

Zuko kicks his ass. Like, straight up wipes the floor with him. It’s awful.

It’s a good, fair battle but it still smarts at Sokka’s pride to get wiped that hard.

What makes the loss smart a little bit less is that after their agreed upon 3 v. 3 single matches, Zuko sends one of the junior trainers to fetch hyper potions for both his own Pokémon and for Sokka’s too. It’s a pretty nice gesture, and despite that Sokka literally saw the guy beat somebody to unconsciousness a couple of hours ago, watching him croon to his Vulpix about what a good girl she is softens the whole hard-and-broody thing he’s trying to pull off. 

“Man, I thought this was a fire gym,” Sokka complains, flat on his back and annoyed.

Zuko levels him with an extremely unimpressed stare and Iroh snorts into his teacup.

“Why are you still here?”

“Because I spent my whole day tracking you down and then I lost to you. Deal with it.” The fact that Vaporeon got railed by a Pikachu that has managed to learn flamethrower will haunt Sokka for the rest of his days and he wants Zuko to know it. Vaporeon, healed and content and traitorous, munches on the pieces of smoked jerky Zuko keeps slipping to him underneath the kotatsu. Zuko’s Vulpix is under the kotatsu too, every so often making a good, solid attempt to untie Sokka’s shoelaces with her sharp little teeth.

Sokka gives her a little nudge with his hand under the table.

“Stop that.”

Vulpix threatens a playful bite with a tickle of teeth but at the warning  _ ah-ah-ah _ Zuko gives her, she licks instead, flouncing out from under the table and hopping up into the gym leader’s lap like he’s her personal throne. Sokka snickers at him.

Zuko briefly looks like he wants to punch Sokka in the nose, but does not do this. He takes a sip of his own tea and looks a little bit constipated.

“Really, though. I’m curious. I feel like most of the other gyms are pretty straightforward? And here you are, kicking ass with a fire-breathing Pikachu.”

“All of the pokémon I use in my gym battles are either fire-types or know fire-type moves,” Zuko grumbles eventually, voice a little quieter and a little less salty. It’s nice to hear when he’s not quite so snarly. “Vulca’s gym is the last on a challenger’s way to the champion. If someone can’t handle what I can throw at them, they definitely can’t handle what comes next. It wouldn’t be fair to take it easy on anybody.”

And yeah, okay, that smarts a little too.

The worst part is that Sokka kind of can see where he’s coming from.

“You know that next time, I’m not losing to you, right? I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Zuko eyes him steadily. He either doesn’t see or just doesn’t acknowledge the way that Iroh does a very tiny spittake into his tea. Sokka does see it and tries to not laugh about it. His pride still stings, after all.

“Hand me your phone,” Zuko demands.

“Why?”

“So that when you come back to ‘kick my ass’—“ the air quotes are entirely unnecessary, “—you can text ahead and make sure that I’m here. Make an appointment. Something.”

Sokka feels like he’s living on another planet but he nevertheless unlocks his phone and hands it over, watches as Zuko enters in his phone number. There’s a quiet swooshing sound of a message being sent.

“I texted myself,” he explains like that’s a thing that makes sense, and hands Sokka back his phone. The message that Zuko’s sent literally just says  _ catch me if you can _ . Like an asshole. Sokka glares at him and adds Zuko to his contact list as  _ Vulca’s Local Cryptid _ .

  
  


* * *

Here’s what Sokka doesn’t expect about having Gym Leader Zuko’s personal number:

The guy is a total weirdo.

To be fair, it might be partly Sokka’s fault, because he can’t keep from bothering anything, and not even an hour after leaving Vulca’s gym, he can’t resist.

_ [Did u ever go back and buy milk???] _

Five minutes later, a ping.

_ [Did you ever go back and win that gym match???] _

And that’s just rude and Sokka’s definitely still salty about it.

Another ping, and Zuko’s sent a photo. It’s a selfie, scowling but somehow still smug, holding up a jug of milk that’s recognizable but mostly out of frame. He follows it up with  _ your move, loser. _

_ U know ur unprofessional as hell, right???  _ Sokka rage texts back.

Zuko sends him the poop emoji. Sokka does not dignify that with a response.

He’s tired of camping and has the money for a hotel so Sokka decides to live a little and take the night in a real bed. He gets room service and everything, because life is hard. 

A few minutes past nine, there’s a knock on the door.

“...yes?” Sokka edges off the bed and cracks the door, only to have a small bag thrust at him.

“From the esteemed Gym Leader,” is all the man says and leaves, because it’s late and he almost certainly doesn’t get paid enough for this. Sokka can relate.

Inside the bag is a nicer towel to replace the one that Zuko got covered in blood, as well as an assortment of brightly colored berries. Inside is a note.

_ I always pay my debts. _ And then at the bottom, like it was scribbled as an afterthought,  _ your Pokémon look like they enjoy sweet things. These are local. Share them. _

Sokka eats one, just to be sure.

They’re sweet, and he almost keeps them to himself.

  
  


* * *

[Inside the drawer of the nightstand, there’s a pamphlet about the local attractions of the Vulca Islands. In the back, there’s a page spread about the gym’s history. A color photo of Zuko, Vulpix on his shoulder and a Charizard draping itself over his back, is printed on the left. On the right, the article reads as such:

_ Once considered steady and unchanging, Vulca’s recent gym history is tumultuous and in flux. Once lead by Azula, the daughter of former champion Ozai, the gym is now run by Ozai’s oldest son, Zuko after the revocation of Gym Leader Azula’s trainer’s license and subsequent permanent ban from all Pokemon League-sponsored events. _

_ Zuko describes his battle style as versatile and surprising, and interviewed challengers all seem to agree with the assessment! At seventeen years old, Gym Leader Zuko is an accomplished trainer who is notoriously closed-mouthed about himself, but sources describe him as stubborn, determined, and as fiery in personality as his pokémon team! _

_ Unlike many gyms in the region who favor a no holds barred battle style, Vulca’s gym leader is known for allowing challengers to state their own battle terms, and has the kind of low loss rate that justifies his 8th badge position. When asked his opinion of the current champion and whether he would consider challenging Trainer Aang for his father’s former position, Gym Leader Zuko says,  _

_ “He’s talented and deserves the spot. He can [redacted] keep it.” _

_ Blunt and to the point, that guy!  _

_ In his spare time, Gym Leader Zuko enjoys running with his pokémon and martial arts. ] _

Sokka reads the article twice then takes a photo and sends it to Zuko.

_ [fiery personality is just another way of saying asshole, right?] _

_ [fuck i hate that article.] _

Sokka sends him the poop emoji and then proceeds to go to sleep, content despite his loss and in a real bed for the first time in weeks, for nine hours straight.

* * *

  
  



End file.
